3 steps to stop toddlers climbing the furniture

Posted by Rachel Sibley at April 24 2017, 1:43pm

Once toddlers get moving, they’re rather hard to stop! Very little gets in their way, including big pieces of furniture that can be attractive to scale.

Our Kinderling Helpline expert, Mothercraft Nurse Chris Minogue answers one listener’s question on how to keep little tots safe on the ground. Here are her three tips to halt a clambering toddler in their tracks.

Listen to Chris on Kinderling Helpline:

1. Step outside

“I would get [them] outside the house to climb on something else,” Chris says. “Let [them] climb in the park.” Watch them go up and down the slide and play on the other equipment under your watchful eye.

2. Go for a walk

Chris suggests letting toddlers walk out and about when it’s safe to, more than putting them in a pram. That way they're active and less like to climb up furniture.

3. Distract them

“At home – fight the battles that are worth fighting,” says Chris. “So climbing on the couch is not such a big deal. Climbing up a set of drawers - really big deal.”

If they even vaguely look like they’re going to head towards a set of drawers to climb up, Chris says to stand in front and distract them, instead of saying ‘no’, ‘don’t’ and ‘stop’. Get out something like Tupperware, or their favourite toy to play with. They’ll soon learn to forget scaling forbidden heights in the home.